The American Music Theatre Project (AMTP) at Northwestern University and the FWD Theatre Project presented a concert version of the 1973 musical La Révolution Française — written by the Tony-winning and Academy Award-nominated writing team of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg (Les Misérables, Miss Saigon, The Pirate Queen) — Sept. 28 in Chicago.

Alain Boublil
Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN

The musical features music by Schönberg and Raymond Jeannot, original text by Boublil and Jean-Max Riviere, with English adaptation of book and lyrics by Jeff Award-winning Northwestern alumnus Michael Mahler.

The workshop and subsequent concert reading were directed by 44-time Jeff Award-nominated AMTP artistic director David H. Bell with music direction by Mahler and Jeff Award-winning Roberta Duchak.

Boublil, Schönberg and Mahler were in residence on the University’s Evanston campus Sept. 19-28, workshopping the piece with a cast of 10 professional actors, two Northwestern faculty members, two AMTP and FWD Board Members and 23 Northwestern undergraduate actors.

"Set amid the French Revolution, the story," according to press notes, "centers on the impossible love between Charles Gauthier and Isabelle de Montmorency. Gauthier is the son of a shopkeeper who becomes a member of the Tiers-État; Isabelle is an aristocrat who is forced to flee with the royal family."